KINGSBURY NAMED TO NEW INFORMATION SCIENCES ROLES

David T. Kingsbury, Ph.D., has been named as the first associate dean for information science at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as well as first director of the newly formed division of biomedical information science and director of the William H. Welch Medical Library, serving the Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins hospital and the Kennedy Krieger Institute.

The search committee that reached beyond the usual realm of librarians to select Kingsbury described him as possessing "the scientific, technical and administrative credentials to lead the Medical Institutions successfully into the high-performance computing of the 21st century information age."

Acting director of the library since the retirement of Nina W. Matheson, M.L.S., on January 1, Kingsbury, 53, a research biologist and geneticist, will continue as managing director of the Genome Data Base Program (GDB), a position he has held since coming to Hopkins in October 1992. He is credited with leading the revision of the GDB to make it considerably more user friendly, resulting in the number of users doubling in the first month the new interface was on line, and worked closely with Matheson to revitalize the Welch's Applied Research Laboratory.

Shortly after his appointment, Kingsbury selected Chung Sook Kim as deputy director of the Welch Medical Library. She has been acting deputy director since July. During her more than 20 years at Welch, Kim also has been assistant director for database development and access.

Professor of microbiology and immunology at George Washington University School of Medicine from 1988 to 1993, Kingsbury had been assistant director for biological, behavioral and social sciences at the National Science Foundation from 1984 to 1988, during which he served on the board of regents of the National Library of Medicine.

In his National Science Foundation role, he was its principal policymaker on all areas of biology. He also was instrumental in launching the Human Genome Initiative and in establishing computational biology as a NSF program.

Kingsbury was a central figure in the development of the govermnentwide policy on biotechnology regulation and research. He also represented the federal government's biotechnology interests to state governments and international organizations such as the European Economic Community and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

He has continued his government service as a member of the Department of Energy's Health and Environment Research Advisory Committee and its Informatics Oversight Committee, the Human Genome Coordinating Committee, and several grant review panels.

He is also the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Computational Biology. Kingsbury received a master's of science degree in microbiology from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1965 and was awarded his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Biology at the University of California, San Diego, in 1971.